In Ireland a zealous Franciscan worked up a case against Lady Alice Kyteler, alleged to be one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world; and, though the lady escaped to England, her maid was mercilessly scourged until she confessed a tissue of absurdities, after which she was burnt. Persecution diminished when, in 1330, the Pope withdrew sorcery from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, but the popular belief continued and extended, and the secular courts were sufficiently rigorous in their treatment of offenders. In 1390 two women, after being severely tortured two or three times without result, finally confessed to a charge of making a love-philtre, and were burnt. The early trials for sorcery in England were held in the civil courts, the leniency of which was disapproved by the Church; in 1407, therefore, Henry IV placed the offence under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which naturally made the most of it, and prepared a congenial soil for the witchcraft delusion. One of the most extraordinary cases in history is that of Gilles de Retz (or Rais), who in 1440 was accused of sacrilege, child murder, intercourse with demons, and other offences savouring of heresy. Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, was a rich and powerful baron of Brittany, whose extravagance involved him in many difficulties. He was pious, as far as the observances of religion went, a man of unusual culture, with a passion for expensive books, paintings, music, the drama, and other forms of art. A dabbler in the occult, he sought perseveringly for the Philosopher’s Stone, by which he believed unlimited wealth would be gained, enabling him to keep up his lavish display and prodigality. But there was a very much darker side to his character. He was accustomed to employ agents, women as well as men, to entice children from their parents, by whom they were never seen again. These disappearances became so numerous that suspicion was aroused, and de Rais was at last arrested and tried before the Bishop of Nantes and the Vice-Inquisitor of the diocese. He was found guilty, but no sentence was pronounced. Immediately afterwards he was tried in a secular court, and sentenced to be hanged and burnt, with two servants who had been accomplices in his ghastly crimes. Making allowance for popular exaggeration, which attributed countless victims to him, there is reason to believe that 140 children were outraged and murdered, their bodies being thrown into pits. It is said that “so depraved became his appetite that he found his chief enjoyment in the death agonies of his victims, over whose sufferings he gloated as he skilfully mangled them and protracted their torture. When dead he would criticize their beauties with his confidential servitors, would compare one with another, and would kiss with rapture the heads which pleased him most.”[38] Yet this monster died with words of godly exhortation on his lips and confident of salvation.